


Elysian

by YunhosFlower



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: F/M, mafia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 11:28:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20705249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YunhosFlower/pseuds/YunhosFlower
Summary: It's all fun and games growing up in a family that kills for fun, except it's not.You just want out.





	1. Chapter One ; Alone

The sun had disappeared from the sky hours ago, taking away the warmth in the air with it, consequently raising goosebumps along the pale skin of your exposed arms and legs as you forced one foot in front of the other down the hauntingly quiet street.  
  
The city was never lifeless, even at this hour, but on this particular night the normally motion and sound filled air hummed with far less intensity than it had during the day, and any of the normal inhabitors of the street had long since disappeared along with the sun, their expensively shoed feet carrying them back into the lives they had beyond their businesses on this specific street.  
  
And where their well dressed selves had rushed across the pavement, your feet dragged with heavy and slow listless footsteps, like bags filled with heavy rocks dragged at the heels of your feet.  
  
While they were more than likely going back to a home, and loved ones to share their power and wealth with, you were trying desperately to ignore the aching gap of darkness inside your chest.  
  
You couldn’t blame them though, if you had a warm home filled with love and happiness to escape to, you would too.  
  
Although, perhaps some of them just didn’t want to be out here at night, where the thugs and hardened criminals would begin to lurk in the shadows that they avoided in the daylight, silent and sly threats waiting for the cover and anonymity that the darkness of night brought.  
  
It would be hard to draw the line over those kind of men were more dangerous than the kind of people that waited back at your home for you… your family.  
  
To you, the people in the shadows out here weren’t threats, though unpleasant to deal with, they were definitely not the same threat to you that they were to other teenage girls.  
  
Tonight wasn’t the first time you’d been out here at this time, and in the past it had been for bigger problems than those that you faced right now, so the unnatural lack of bustle and activity didn’t overly bother you. Likewise the exposure to the now unfamiliar territory and people didn’t worry you, you had tricks up your sleeve to handle situations that you didn’t have an upper hand in.  
  
Not a skillset that you were entirely proud of being in possession of, although it was somewhat of a blessing to you in situations like these.  
  
It had been almost 3 days now that you had been alone, and thought you were fully aware of your capability to look after yourself, it was still surprising how well luck had held out on your side for the last 72 hours.  
  
Somewhere behind you a bus squealed to a halt, the brakes sending dirty fumes into the air that made you choke, accompanied by the loud protests of the driver at the owner of the sleek dark car that had been the cause of the sudden stop in traffic.  
  
You turned away from the scene, forcing yourself to hold your breath until you were far enough away that the eye watering scent of the bus fumes wouldn’t send you into a coughing fit.  
  
The throbbing in your left ankle was a harsh reminder to that that however you’d thought things were going for you up until now, they were no longer going in that direction and the need to find somewhere to lay low for a few hours, even catch up on the sleep that your body desperately craved and needed, itched deeply in your weary bones.  
  
In the time since you’d last been in your own home you’d gotten less than full night of sleep, a luxury that only slowed you down considerably in your desperate attempts to evade your family and all your ‘responsibilities’ to them.  
  
You hunched your shoulders forward and turned your face to the side as a young couple, probably too engrossed in one another’s faces to even notice you anyway, wandered past.  
  
All of a sudden, too many people were out for you to continue at your earlier pace while maintaining your own safety and identity, it was fast becoming impossible to keep your status under the radar.  
  
Every passing figure could be someone working for your family and even if you didn’t run into one of them, the city was full of people exactly like them. And the ones not working for your family were possibly even worse, by far more dangerous to you.  
  
On a normal day you might have scoffed at the minor inconvenience of coming from a famous family, although on a normal day you tried very hard to forget that you were from a family that was famous for all the wrong kinds of things.  
  
Your family had been orchestrated into a dirty business sometime years before you were even born and yet you’d been unwillingly dragged right along into the thick of it from the moment you’d been old enough to speak.  
  
The idea that you belonged to a family that insisted on referring to themselves ‘mafia’, as if having a label to direct the blame of blood pain and death that followed them around was something to wear proudly on your sleeve, was in fact laughable to you.  
  
A bubble of laughter inevitably became ensnared in your throat, tasting bitterly of all things you despised -you’d always stuck out like a giant, bright yellow flag in your family, amiss of the violence that most of them had acquired either by circumstance or blood.  
  
Despite your disregard for the family business, they had managed to create quite a spectacle of themselves, and not only in the dark world of drugs.  
  
No matter how hard you had tried previously in your life to escape the constant messes that your family laid out for you, you always ended right back in the midst of it. An unwilling but perfect victim in their plans and manipulation; their horrifying acts and lack of sincerity or remorse were endless.  
  
You shook your head to clear it, a neon lit sign dangling haphazardly above the nearby doorway into a less than appealing looking building grabbed your attention and you slowed your admittedly already slow pace to catch what the painfully brightly lit words said, praying the change in pace didn’t beam you out to anyone potentially paying attention to the street.  
  
_Cheap Rooms.  
  
_Of course.  
  
The first option that came along was a building that looked like it was barely standing the strong wind buffeting around and against it. Some of the windows appeared smashed, whilst others simply just had boarding over them, indicating either damage to the glass panes or suspicion that damage would be caused; both options were cause for concern if you were going to be spending a night, or even a few hours, in one of the rooms beyond them.  
  
But at this point you were desperate and this was probably the best option you were going to find tonight, or at all, and it would be incredibly idiotic to pass it up when the heaviness of every one your limbs was making each step a fresh difficulty to face.  
  
You swallowed down the nauseatingly ominous feeling that the building gave you and shouldered your way through the surprisingly heavy wooden door that creaked loudly in protest, clearly rarely used and not very well secured on the hinges for something of its weight.  
  
A young woman, maybe only a few years older than your twenty, looked up from the fold of her arms, where her had been resting comfortably, at the sound of the door.  
  
Her wide brown eyes betrayed her surprise as she stood up slowly, providing beyond a doubt that this was a rarely frequented place that I should be running away from, not eagerly enquiring about the cheap room sign.  
  
“What brings you to this kind of place to spend the night?” She asked casually as she handed me the room key in exchange for the bundle of notes that I’d tried to non suspiciously seperate from the definitely suspicious and sizeable wad of money in my pocket, the key nearly dropping onto the counter that barely qualified as anything more than a long-abandoned school desk.  
  
It was the first exchange of words between you that was not strictly related to the renting of the room you were now gripping the key to in your sweating palm. Whether your skin was sweating because you were nervous or because your muscles were trembling with the need to have your weight off them, you didn’t know.  
  
Not that it mattered.  
  
Her words were casual, but her eyes were too curious for comfort as you shoved the key into your back pocket, ignoring the hard throb in your foot as your shifted your weight to display your discomfort at her question, hoping it was enough to dissuade her from asking more.  
  
“I’m desperate.” You murmured, avoiding eye contact with her. As easily as you knew the right groups of people on the street to avoid running into or ending up in a conflict with, you knew that it was stupid to place any trust in anyone you spoke to outside of your family.  
  
As messed up as your family were, they were about as far as your trust circle extended by instinct, mostly because of the things you knew others were capable of.  
  
Though this woman with her soft rounded face and smile lines looked a lot more like someone you could trust, coming from a family like yours meant you knew that people like her were the exact ones that you should worry about most.  
  
People that smiled and spoke in sugary voices, all soft edges and seemingly carefree questions;they were the ones who would trade you up without hesitation for money, for sex, for whatever drug it was that they were addicted to. Those were the ones with the most to hide.  
  
There were few people that you could trust on instinct when you grew up knowing things that young girls shouldn’t ever have to know and there were few things that could shake you when you grew up with that knowledge.  
  
So although your soul ached with a childlike need that had never been filled, to lean against the young in front of you and unleash the dam of tears and thoughts and worries of the last twenty years of your life, you knew better.  
  
She shrugged and nodded easily at my response, either knowing better than to prod at the less than satisfactory answer or not caring enough to get herself involved in someone else’s worries.  
  
  
**  
  
The inside of the building was a haven compared to the outside, the hallway carpeted with plush red coverings and the walls a soft creamy white that emanated a clean smell rather than the horrible scents you’d been expecting to find lurking in some darkened hallways.  
  
Though the doors looked a little worse for wear, they were intact and seemed functional enough at a glance. A small set of ten steps led up to another floor, the one that the room you’d booked was located on, at your request.  
  
The height gave you a slight sense of advantage, you would be able to hear someone coming up and down these creaking steps in the night no matter how light their step was.  
  
Which gave you about an extra ten seconds to figure out firstly whether they were footsteps that you needed to be worried about and secondly a way out of the building that wasn’t the stairs. Which judging by the lack of stairs at the opposite end of the hallway, there wasn’t.  
  
It shouldn’t be something that a 20 year old needed to worry about, whether members of her own family, mafia or not, would find her in the night and either kill her or take her back to the last place on earth she ever wanted to step foot in again; home.  
  
Alas, the world worked in strange and more often than note, horrible, ways. So tonight would no doubt be the longest yet of the past three you’d spent running.  
  
Now stationary and not having the advantage of moving constantly from one spot to another, you were more vulnerable than you had been since you even started running in the first place.  
  
Not that it mattered, because no matter how hard or fast or far you ran, eventually you _were _going to end up back in front of _him_.  
  
If anything, running now was more about causing difficulties for them, because you were out of time and every knew it. In the sense of self preservation, you were taking the least advisable course of action in continuing to evade them.  
  
The best that was left to do was make it an interesting end to the game that you’d been playing with them your whole life.  
  
Or the only parts of your life that you could remember at least, which was essentially all of it.  
  
After a few moments of pausing in front of various doors on your floor to check the metal numbers displayed, you found the one with a number on it that matched the silver key resting on the flat on your palm, glinting under the warm lights.  
  
A pleasant and faint smell of vanilla and sandalwood hit your nose as soon as you allowed the door to swing open, key still slotted into the lock.  
  
Keeping a cautionary gaze fixed on the dark interior of the room before you as you sought out the light switch, fingers fumbling clumsily and numbing in the chilly air for a few moments before finally knocked against something and hopefully flicking it upwards.  
  
A warm glow flooded the room, taking the edge off the chill and highlighting the small kitchen that you were slowly moving into, kicking the door closed behind you once you managed to tug the key out of the lock.  
  
The open layout of the room was pretty standard for most hotel rooms, and once again you found yourself somewhat surprised at the quality of the room itself, having expected something shabby to match the exterior of the building.  
  
Just beyond the edge of the kitchen tiling a dark carpet covered enough space for a neatly made double bed, small delicate closet which you suspected was probably empty save for a few spare towels and bedsheets, and a table that looked barely big enough to seat two people despite the four chairs that had somehow managed to be squeezed around the solid wooden base.  
  
A door was slightly ajar at the far side of the bed, bathroom appliances gleaming beyond it with a clean glow, looking ironically to be much less crowded than the rest of the room.  
  
An airy sigh of relief expelled out of your lungs on a breath that you hadn’t known you were holding until it was released, and you slumped down into of the rickety chairs, stretching our your legs with a grateful groan.  
  
If your bones could have creaked alongside the chair below you at the movement, they would have.  
  
Somehow it seemed like you’d been blessed with one of the better rooms in possession of a window that was neither broken nor boarded up, which only added to your slow mounting release.  
  
The muscles in your legs throbbed at the sudden lack of your weight on them and fatigue gripped you in an unshakeable grasp now that you were finally sitting down, slowing down. 

All the emotions and demons that you’d been running from nonstop for the last three days loomed dangerously near the surface your calm facade, tempting fate with a long awaited and overdue breakdown.  
  
Thought this was the first time in days that you’d stopped for longer than a minute to think about the choices you’d made, the last thing you needed was to begin to drown under the weight of those choices.  
  
Leaving that house, that part of your family, wasn’t a choice that you had made lightly or on a sudden whim but the consequences of choosing to leave were nothing to laugh at.  
  
If you were caught.  
  
Which for you, was inevitable in one way or another.  


The last three days had been hard, adjusting form the comfort of an undeniably well paid for life to walking without stopping and surviving on energy that had already been on dwindling reserves had been hard.  
  
But it was harder to stay in a house where innocent people were turned into monsters… where _good _people did bad things out of misguided intentions, where normal people walked in normal and came back out empty husks of the people they’d once been.  
  
Every pair of eyes in your home were windows to a broken phantom of what the person had once been, lacking any innocence and naivety to the reality of the world that everyone else was born with.  
  
Even you’d been born believing there was still good out there at the beginning.  
  
Not that it had lasted long.  
  
Every room had a story of death and every person that dared walking through the silent halls had blood staining their soul in one way or another.. especially you.  
  
Your skin rolled now in disgust at the memories of the things they’d done to people, the things that you’d had to stand by and witness happening without intervening.  
  
The sickening smile on Jungwoo’s otherwise sweet face as he choked the life out of a young boy as he insisted he wasn’t the one behind the drug bust that Jungwoo had lost family in was something that had haunted your dreams for years and was impossible to erase from your mind.  
  
Nor could you wipe away the distraught look on a woman’s face as Taeyong stared emotionlessly and callously down at her dying child, clutched against her chest.  
  
A child that he had let die in a raid gone wrong, someone he had been responsible for and had at one point cared for until they stopped being useful to him.  
  
Of course the woman had known, everyone knew the ultimate price that came with being involved in your family, but the knowledge alone hadn’t been enough to stop her heart from breaking. Nothing would ever replace what she had lost on that night though.  
  
Physical nausea writhed in your gut as similar memory after memory ate into your thoughts, the abhorrent recollections piling higher and higher, and they weren’t even the reason that you’d left.  
  
They were just extra little things on the side, adding up to the main course.  
  
Of course, not every single person living under my grandfather’s roof were doing the things they did for bad reasons, certainly not all of them enjoyed doing the horrifying things required of them.  
  
A lot of them hadn’t even been born into the family, not like you had with the history of a whole mafia family lapping at your heels and urging you down a path of destruction.  
  
In fact if you were to place a bet, you’d bet easily that majority of your _‘family’_ weren’t legally and technically speaking your family, although there wasn’t a lot about the word family that had ever indicated legality anyway.  
  
No, most of them were there because your grandfather had taken them in as impressionable children with nothing left. And if they did have something else to live for, they wouldn’t for long, especially not if he wanted them.  
  
Your childhood memories were half filled with faces that often came and went, though there were faces there that had come and never went, faces that you were now having to check over your shoulder for every ten seconds because those were the kids who had grown up alongside you, who knew you better than even your grandfather did.  
  
Those were the ones who had been trained alongside you, to be ruthless fighters and trackers.  
  
He’d promised them a roof, food, safety amongst your existing family as long as they promised in return to work for him, to protect the family in turn the way you’d protected them.  
  
And what kid would turn down such a harmless offer?  
  
The swirling thoughts in your mind refused to stand still, even as your head dropped down onto the table and sleep claimed your exhausted body, finally.  
  
A familiarly gentle vibration in your pocket, more than likely a phone call that you didn’t need or want to answer, drew you out of the constricting blackness that was supposed to rejuvenate your depleted energy.  
  
If anything, it felt like it had just sapped more.  
  
You straightened your cramped and limp limbs, body and mind immediately alert and tense, prepared for the worst outcome.  
  
Thanks to years of training it was a learn instinct to be instantly aware of your surroundings, something that you knew despite your hatred for it could be the difference between life and death… especially now.  
  
Although, nothing about the room seemed out of place as you forced yourself up onto your feet, using the brisk search of the room to wake yourself up properly, something you were grateful for.  
  
There were still things to do before you could rest properly, it had been stupid to let yourself doze off without properly checking the room in the first place. How were you going to know if something was different if you didn’t know how things had been to begin with?  
  
_Stupid, stupid. _You berated yourself inwardly, because you knew better, because for once this wasn’t training and for once your life really did depend on things like this.  
  
The vibration, which you’d momentarily forgotten was the thing that had woken you, ceased and you pulled the offending device out of your pocket, surprised that it even had any dregs of charge left in it.  
  
Hundreds of messages, some threatening and some mildly concerned, while others were nothing more than simple business related communications, lit up your screen and you scrolled until you found the name of the only person left in the world that you cared about messaging you.  
  
For a moment, a horrible sinking sensation filled the pit of your stomach when you got to the bottom of your messages and didn’t see her name.  
  
And then you saw it, that stupid little green bubble that indicated a missed message, followed by the name of the only person in this world that you’d ever allowed yourself to trust more than.. well yourself.  
  
_Kim Sana.  
  
_Not only was she the only person you could trust, she was the prodigy of our household, perhaps even the entire family bloodline.  
  
From a young age Sans had shown a wide range of skills and abilities that far exceeded most fully grown adults in the business.  
  
And yet despite this, she was the only one who, like yourself, had refused to be sent out on heists or missions. With a low tolerance for violence and bullying, or anything that involved leverage of power, she stuck out alongside your bright yellow like a vibrant red in a sea of black and white.  
  
You prayed to whatever high beings were listening that she hadn’t done something stupid yet, as was highly possibly given her volatile nature and rash decision making.  
  
You swiped open your phone, checking the identity of the last caller.  
  
It was her.  
  
Hesitantly you pressed the screen to return her call, preparing yourself for the oncoming conversation.  
  
You hadn’t told her when you’d left, both because there had been no time and because it complicated things to involved the most wanted 19 year old in the underground world of Seoul.  
  
“Choi Eun-Jae! Where hell are you?” Her voice was barely less than a scream through the poor speakers of the phone, answering after the second ring and you moved the device further from the shell of your ear in an attempt to protect your eardrums from the onslaught of her accusations.  
  
The high pitched complaining continued for a few minutes before silence fell and you chanced returning the receiver to your ear and heaving a quiet sigh.  
  
“Hello to you too.” Your eyes gravitated to the window, taking in the solid pane of glass as something niggled in the back of your mind while you spoke. It was interestingly lucky that you’d been given one of the very few good rooms, even after being so abrupt with the receptionist downstairs. “I had to leave, things were getting out of hand and- I just couldn’t stay.”  
  
You wanted a moment for her reply, still unable to force your eyes away from the glass, hoping that if you stared long enough, your uneasy feeling would bloom into something that you could actually act on.  
  
“I know Eunnie.. But you shouldn’t be out there alone. What about when Johnny finds out, what the hell will you do then?” You couldn’t help the small snort of amusement that came out of your pressed together lips at her words, despite her serious tone. You could easily picture her rolling her eyes and putting her small face into her hands in exasperation at your inability to take the situation seriously.  
  
Normally the roles were severely reversed.  
  
“Johnny doesn’t scare me.” The wind buffered at the window pane, making the glass panes rattle loosely in place, the sound setting your nerves on edge, filling you further with apprehension. The small hairs on the back of your neck rose as you leaned forward in your seat, a frown beginning to furrow your brows and crease over your forehead.  
  
Suddenly the sweet vanilla that had previously filled your nose seemed sour and the open layout of the room seemed like a trap designed specifically for you, to give you no space to hide.  
  
It was getting harder to breathe through the growing panic.  
  
Sana was quiet for a moment, the silence stretching longer and longer as you struggled desperately not to let paranoia take over completely. It was entirely possible that’s all that was going on, and if you acted now on a feeling that was nothing more than a feeling, you were all but placing yourself right into the hands of your family if you went running out of here with no plan beyond escaping some phantom fear.  
  
Despite years of training for being out in the world alone, you were not amiss to the fact that you were the least prepared for being out here alone with only your own skills to rely on.  
  
“Maybe not, but Yuta and Sorn should.” Her voice finally came, quieter than before, sweeping away a minimal layer of your fears.  
  
Her voice was slightly muffled now and you couldn’t tell if it was the pounding of your heart sending blood around your head or something else, but her words were laced with the worry and concern that continued to grow and develop in the back of your mind.  
  
You rolled out some of the growing tension in your shoulders and finally stood, quietly, making your way silently and quickly to the window with the phone pressed between your ear and shoulder.  
  
It was probably nothing.  
  
She had a valid point though, your family’s business leader Johnny should be the most intimidating and worrying person for you, but right now his side man and woman, Sorn and Yuta were much more formidable problems for you.  
  
Johnny had always been gentle and slightly dim witted by nature, coming into the top position only by a series of unfortunate events and luck. He left much, if not all, of the decisions to his most trusted members.  
  
If Yuta and Sorn weren’t in charge, things would be very different for you, for everyone.  
  
“Eunnie?” Sana’s affectionate name for you echoed emptily in your ears as you peered cautiously out through the glass window into the dimly lit street below.  
  
Just like when you’d dragged yourself along it not long ago, it was dark and the sidewalk was cluttered with rubbish and cars that looked like they’d been parked for longer than this building had been standing.  
  
Despite the heavy sense of abandonment and the almost foreboding darkness that the lack of streetlights created, it seemed safe enough.  
  
Probably not a street a normal teenage girl would turn down at this hour and to the naked eye there were no obvious warning signs.  
  
But finding the most minute details in the safest looking situations was just one of the things you’d spent the last ten long years of your training learning, and something about the seemingly peaceful street below didn’t feel at all right.  
  
Two sleek black cars parked at the very beginning of the street, neatly and slyly blocking the road against any passing vehicles immediate view, caught your eyes and you tilted your head, peering intently at them for any sign of movement.  
  
But if there was anyone sitting in the no doubt expensively lush interior of either car, you couldn’t tell from this distance, the windows were far too tinted and the night sky far too dark to give you any chance of an upper hand from here.  
  
The cars did a poor job of blending into their surroundings, which only indicated to you at least that there was no urgency for them to remain unnoticed. As your gaze continued to flicker around the street, searching for anything else out of place, the growing feeling of dread and suspicion stuttered to a stomach dropping halt.  
  
Despite it being a twenty four hour hotel offering up cheap rooms, the very reason you’d even entered the building, the neon lit sign was now no longer casting it’s light on to the dark street.  
  
It could easily just be coincidence that the receptionist downstairs had turned it off, or perhaps it had simply stopped working.  
  
But you didn’t believe in coincidence and you sure as hell weren’t about to risk your life on that chance.  
  
Your knuckles turned white as your gripped the windowsill hard between your fingers and palms, ignoring the pain that the hard edges digging into the soft skin caused.  
  
There was no logical business reasoning to turn off the only marketing a twenty four hour hotel in the middle of a dark street had going for them.  
  
“Sana, they’ve found me.” You said into the phone with more composure and calmness than you felt, swiftly turning away from the window and heading towards your discarded jacket, the only thing that you’d brought with you.  
  
Your mind had switched from suspicious to panic mode, brain sifting through every possible option in front of you.  
  
There weren’t a lot.  
  
With every step your ankle screeched in protest at the weight being put on it, filling you with more and more dread. If it was a struggle to walk across a small hotel room, then how were you going to get yourself out of this damn situation?  
  
“Get out of there.” She hissed into the phone, sounding somehow more on the edge than you. You forced the jacket on, patting the pockets to ensure that nothing had fallen out; the familiar lumps of the items you’d shoved into them , including the wad of money, remained the only comfortingly thing in place, despite the hell that likely about to break loose.  
  
“That’s the plan.” You muttered, teeth digging harshly into your tongue as you considered what your next move was. Probably getting off the phone, because the longer you had Sana’s panicked breathing and instructions in your ear, the less time you had to really think about what to do. “Sana be careful at home.”  
  
The soft warning barely left your lips before you hung up the phone and shoved it back into your pocket, heart pounding heavily in your chest.  
  
She didn’t need to be told to be careful, Sans was too smart for her own good, but you’d needed something better to say to her than ‘goodbye’.  
  
The hallway outside your room suddenly seemed thick with tension when you stepped out into it, casting your gaze warily left to right. There wasn’t exactly a lot of escape options in the small building and so far the only exit you’d seen was the entrance you’d come through, which you couldn’t exactly prance out of like you’d walked in.  
  
“Idiot.” You reprimanded yourself below your breath, heading down towards the end of the corridor that you hadn’t yet been down, hoping that you’d been wrong earlier in assuming there was nothing but a dead end. You hoped against all logic that an answer would present itself the form of an open door or fire escape, something subtle that would be hard to see from far away.  
  
It had been stupid to slow down this early, to let yourself breath even for a moment and if you couldn’t find a way out of this hotel in the next few minutes then you were going to pay for it, likely with your life.  
  
As strong as your family’s bonds were, leaving them had always been a death sentence, for anyone.  
  
That’s why everyone stayed, enduring the messy life rather than abandoning it when things got too tough and living out a normal life.  
  
There had even very few people who had ever even attempted leaving and even less when those were killed, or befell ‘tragic accidents’.  
  
The heartbroken face of Ten, you were pretty sure nobody knew his real name, flew unbidden to your mind as you paused outside one of the doorways towards the end of the hallway, which still looked depressingly lacking of a way out.  
  
Poor Ten who had lost everything in one swift blow of a rival gang’s leader’s fist, forcing his youngest brother’s skull into the hard concrete.  
  
He’d died instantly.  
  
Naive Ten who had come running to Yuta, begging him to help him, to give him time to grieve.  
  
Small Ten who had been broken by the simple withering stare Yuta had thrown at him before leaving the room with little more than a ‘people die, get used to it’.  
  
The once, annoyingly, cheerful Ten had fallen to his knees, head in his hands as he screamed in a way that had shattered your heart that he couldn’t stay here, couldn’t be a part of the family anymore.  
  
Your stomach rolled nauseously at the memory of San and you holding his sobbing body between you through the night, maybe the longest night of either of your lives, doing your best to ease his pain.  
  
Because neither of you had been able to bear the thought that he might really try to leave, that his precious life would go to waste alongside his brother’s.  
  
And he hadn’t left, because he knew that leaving was a suicide mission by the time he recovered from the initial pain of losing his only blood family.  
  
Slowly over the weeks his gentle face had lost the compassion that you’d once adored in him, replaced with the hard angles and glares of the reality that he would lose people often and unexpectedly.  
  
He’d lost his smile, replaced by a near constant frown, everything about him leeching into giving for those he cared little for.  
  
He appeared less and less around the mansion like building that we called home, preferring to spend the little time he wasn’t underground or undercover with exotic women with even more exotic tastes, who helped him forget the people he continued to lose each new day.  
  
He was no longer the young man who had screamed desperately for his brother, he was just a well-oiled machined orchestrated by Yuta and Sorn to go through the motions, to get his own hands dirty on their behalf.  
  
You shook your head in an effort to rid yourself of the haunting thoughts.  
  
Almost every member in that house, in your family, in the business, had a similar or sometimes worse story to tell.  
  
Losing people was a daily occurrence, loving was not an option.  
  
It was enough to make anyone lose their humanity.  
  
Everyone who was a part of it was bound to end up a monster, whether it was who they were or because it just happened that way. There was no running from that, becoming a monster was all that was in store for any of your family.  
  
And you were one of them.  



	2. Chapter 2

A bright green EXIT sign glowed at the end of the corridor like a hidden gem in a survival game and a heavy iron door was the only thing standing between you and freedom, or some level of freedom at least.  
  
A slightly dappled ray of light in the otherwise hopeless looking situation you were in.  
  
You reached out and tested the heavy door handle, not at all surprised when a pressure prevented it from fully turning and letting you out. It would be beyond your luck for this door to be unlocked already.  
  
A sigh slid out from your lips and you bit down hard on your bottom one while you thought about how you could manage to get this heavy ass door open.  
  
If you’d been better prepared, like you should have been, you would have had a set of lock picks on you for this exact kind of situation. But you’d left in a rush, heart ripping apart at the idea of being locked up in that house with those people for a second longer and you’d thought so insignificantly little of the fact that you’d be tracked and followed.  
  
And eventually caught. 

Your phone vibrated insistently in your pocket, distracting you from your current train of thought and you pulled it out, answering and putting the receiver to your ear without bothering to check the caller ID.  
  
There was no doubt in your mind that it would be Sana anyway, and if it was someone else then maybe you could buy yourself some time.  
  
“Eunnie-” You leaned back against the thick metal door behind you as Sana’s voice spilled out of the phone speaker in a quick rush of words that were near indecipherable, sending away the brief moment of relaxation that hearing her voice brought you.  
  
“Where are you?” You’d barely opened your mouth to answer her question and tell her to stay away when she was speaking again, so fast that every seperate word seemed to melt into one long one.  
  
“I’m coming, they sent Taeyong out there.” Slowly, so slowly, you straightened up, sending a now panicked glanced down the hall that you were standing helplessly vulnerable in.  
  
Taeyong.  
  
He’d been a sweet kid, all things considered. He’d grown up alongside you and Sana and treated you like any caring older brother would treat his sisters.. He’d never wanted to be involved, never wanted to be out on the field or hurt anyone, much alike us.  
  
In fact, in some ways you wondered if Taeyong’s influence and existence as a caring older brother figure in your life was the exact way it had started out that you refused to become involved in the violence.  
  
By some unlucky chance he’d ended up out there, thrown into the middle of a war with another family that he’d had nothing to do with.  
  
He’d been the only one to come out alive, covered in the blood of not only the rival family, but his own.  
  
The sweet older brother had disappeared right in front of our eyes, buried deep below his pain and the self blame he burdened on himself for being unable to help anyone that night. Slowly he’d lost countless nights of sleep to the training centre, until the person that he became out in the world was nothing more than another monster that scared you.  
  
As easily as he’d been the older brother who would protect you both with his life, he had become the older brother of the entire family who would slaughter an entire household of people with nothing more than a silver knife at his disposal.  
  
He was not just someone to be within our family, but within the whole district of Seoul.  
  
And if he was here, you didn’t stand a chance.  
  
Not only because he was the best of the best, but because your heart still somehow saw Taeyong as the tired older boy crumpled up at your bedside during the late and early hours of morning and night while you suffered through an illness.  
  
It didn’t matter how many things you’d seen him do, what your mind knew he was capable of doing, because your heart had always overruled your mind.  
  
And despite the horrible person he had become, he was still Taeyong and he would never take me back to that place. Not alive.  
  
Hot tears welled in your eyes, blurring your vision as they spilt wetly down your cheeks, way too warm on the coldness of your skin and angrily you swiped the back of your hand across them to dispel the liquid.  
  
No.  
  
Taeyong would kill you on the spot because his new self couldn’t leave the job unfinished and his old self wouldn’t have the heart to take you back alive and kicking, knowing he’d just be sent out to recapture you again and again, forced to watch the fire in your eyes slowly become doused the way his had.  
  
He’d take your limp, lifeless body back to that cold house and it would be the end of him.  
  
Because however cold hearted he had become, killing you would still break whatever of his old self was left inside him. You didn’t want or need to be responsible for the lives that he would take in an effort to extinguish his guilt and anger at himself.  
  
With a voice that trembled no matter how hard you tried not to let it, you gave Sana the rough location of the hotel, recalling as much detail as you could about the outside street and trusting her to be able to figure the rest out while the door recaptured your attention and earned a desperate kick.  
  
A solid ringing of metal met the force of your foot and you grimaced at the pain already encompassing your ankle increased tenfold, becoming near unbearable to handle without sobbing.  
  
If it were possible to physically see time slow and tick down second by second in front of you, that would be what you were experiencing as you waited for bated breath for Sana to arrive.  
  
She was your only chance now and the inevitability of your life relying on her only made time that much more precious now.  
  
At some point the phone had fallen to the ground from your numb fingertips and a quick glance downwards told you that there was no point in picking it up now and taking it with you;the screen was so shattered that tiny splinters of glass had completely fallen out in some places and the sides were dented thanks to the impact.  
  
Though it was unlikely that Taeyong would yet venture up here if he was truly here, you couldn’t help casting regularly timed anxious glances down to the other end of the hallway, where the darkness seemed to be a physical thing haunting the corner of your eyes.  
  
At some point they would feel confident that you had fallen asleep and take their chances then, rather than having to face you awake. In fact the longer they remained down there, the better you felt, because if they knew that you were aware of their presence, they’d be up here in a matter of seconds, which would be equal to how much longer you’d live once they reached the floor you were on.  
  
You shuddered, rubbing your arms rapidly in hopes of dispelling the goosebumps rising along the pale flesh. It was eerily quiet in the long hall, barely anything more than the sounds of your panicked breathes filled the air, which of course only made the air feel thicker and the walls seem closer, like a box slowly encasing and crushing you in an inescapable grip.  
  
Your heart slammed heavily into your chest as the door behind you gave a sudden creak, followed by a muffled curse, giving off an undesirably loud warning that someone was on the other side.  
  
There was no way to tell whether the voice that had and continued to curse was female or male through the thick layers of metal and the new noises coming from the other side of the lock were no more help in figuring out whether it was a friend or foe.  
  
Chances were high that it was Sana, but if the last few hours had taught you anything, it was not to let your guard down, to expect the worse no matter what.  
  
You took a step away from the door, as if the distance alone would be enough to protect you if it weren’t Sana.  
  
It didn’t change the fact that you had no way out now aside from this door, taking the step back wouldn’t save you.  
  
You took a few extra more anyway.  
  
A few agonisingly slow minutes of tapping and twisting sounds passed and finally, just when you were convinced you were going to scream out from the anxiety, a solid click split the air far too loudly, echoing heavily throughout the long corridor.  
  
A bead of sweat slid down your forehead from your hairline, slowly dispersing into your skin on it’s path downwards.  
  
Your fingers sought out your pockets, checking for a weapon or something to use, but as you’d known there was nothing more to be found than an old plastic pen in which the ink had probably long ago dried up in, making it not only useless as a source of protection or weapon but also as piece of everyday stationary.  
  
If you’d been brought up in your family though, anything could be used as a weapon. Your fist closed eagerly around the thin tube of plastic, wrist angled and ready to whip it out and plunge it with as much force as you could into any exposed skin of the person on the other side of the door.  
  
The door swung open in a sudden movement that nearly knocked your careful position completely out of whack as you scrambled backwards to avoid being crushed by the heavy rectangle of metal.  
  
Heavy darkness, thanks to both the darkened night sky and the sudden lack of the bright green exit light obscured the face of the figure leaning in through the door and acting on impulse you lurched forward, arm jerking upwards to use the pen in your pocket.  
  
“Don’t you dare stab me with whatever is in your damn hand.”  
  
A heavy blow blocked your access and you recoiled backwards in shock at both the blow and the harsh whisper. You were forced to drop the pen onto the carpeted floor as surprise loosened your grip.  
  
Your confusion lasted no longer than a moment longer before a relieved swell washed over you.  
  
There was no mistaking the breathy light tone of that voice or the ridiculously small silhouette standing in front of you with arms perched on jutted hips.  
  
Kim Sana leaned forward with a proud smirk peeking out from below the hood of her dark jacket. Her short hair barely fell past her chin in naturally wavy twists and her dark angular eyes glittered below thin straight eyebrows that were a few shades lighter than the dyed pitch black of her hair.  
  
She’d always refused to wear her hair up despite the extra level of safety and ease it would give her.  
  
Her button nose scrunched up while her equally small mouth moved around her soft greeting, which was completely lost to below your overwhelming relief that it was her.  
  
With no time left now to waste on exchanging words she gripped your wrist and angled her head back, indicating you needed to leave.  
  
You forced yourself to breathe evenly, nodding back at her and stepping carefully behind her out of the door, mutely surprised that you hadn’t earlier noticed this alley on your way down the street. Maybe if you had, you would’ve thought to just figure out a way in that didn’t require using the front entrance.  
  
The door creaked slightly on its hinges as you both hurried down the steps, taking them two at a time.  
  
Normally it would be better to close it and at least attempt to obscure your exit, buy extra time, but by the time they figured out you wren’t in there it would be too late to gain any extra time as an advantage. Their efforts would double and any time gained by closing it would be quickly lost.  
  
You pitied whoever fell into the grasp of Taeyong’s rath when he figured out what had happened.  
  
Now that you were somewhat out of immediate danger, the throbbing of your abused ankle was becoming a problem, a problem that was getting increasingly harder to ignore, the constant ache demanding for the limb to be rested.  
  
You tucked your long hair back behind your ears in frustration when a particularly uneven patch in the concrete below you sent you tumbling, a debilitating wave shooting through the entirety of your left leg.  
  
Sana glanced over her shoulder as you bit back on a hiss of pain and paused, lingering in the deep shadows cast by a tall building that towered over you both.  
  
“Eun-Jae, you should have told me something was wrong, idiot.” She scolded you as you leaned breathlessly against one of the crumbling brick corners, casting an automatic and cautionary gaze up and down the footpath.  
  
Despite the ever present uneasy feeling in your gut, there was nobody hiding in the shadows and no soft footfalls sounded in the silent air, following after you.  
  
At least not yet.  
  
“I’m older than you, watch your tone.” You snapped over at Sana, too exhausted and in too much pain to soften your own tone. You were a year apart, but you’d never once asked her to speak formally to you and her surprise at the sudden request was barely concealed on her small oval shaped face.  
  
“Then act like it and speak up when something isn’t right.” She grabbed your face in her hands and squeezed hard, her irritation showing in the dark pools of her eyes. “And don’t run away like a child. What the hell were you even thinking, Eunnie? What are we supposed to do now?”  
  
White hot guilt flashed through you and you tired your face from her hands, rubbing your right cheek where you were pretty sure her thumb nail had indented the soft skin permanently.  
  
Her words echoed around your head like a shout in a deep cavern and you bit down hard on your bottom lip. She was right in a way, it had been stupid to just run off with no money and nobody but yourself for protection, comparable to a child running off in search of the magical pot of gold at the end of every rainbow.  
  
And though the decision to leave had been long in the works, this had been a rushed departure that had quickly become messier than you’d anticipated.  
  
But the last thing Yuta had said to you still repeated like a never-ending, constant chant in the back of your mind, keeping you out on the street instead in the relative comfort of your spacious room back at ‘home’.  
  
“He won’t let us sit out anymore.” You said slowly and cautiously when she’d calmed down from her angry outburst, her feet making loud sounds in the silent night as she paced up and down the pavement in front of you, probably to ease the likely racing of her own thoughts.  
  
At first you weren’t even sure she’d heard until her body stilled, unnaturally stiff and her eyes fixated ahead of her on nothing in particular, both unfocused and unseeing at once.  
  
After years of being taught to read even the most closed off of people like an open book it would have been hard for you not to see the trembling of her fingers as they curled into a loose fist at her side and the way her chest swelled slightly with the breath that she was holding in.  
  
There was no possibility that she’d missed your words, or the meaning that loomed ominously behind them and if she hadn’t understood before why you’d had to leave, she sure as hell did now.  
  
Since the day you’d been old enough to know what your family did to keep such a luxurious lifestyle you’d been adamant in never being a part of it. Though your childish desires were accepted in stride back then, as you’d grown up and been exposed to more and more of that world, it had slowly but surely become impossible to remain completely uninvolved with it.  
  
It had been a question of safety to be trained in, at the very least, the basics of self protection, which was how you’d finally met Sana.  
  
The best trainee of our family, and possibly the worst, you should never have bumped into each other on the first day in that gym. But you had and somehow from that day she had stayed by your side, no matter how obstinate you’d been, supporting and protecting you.  
  
You’d both gone to training only to humour everyone and to ensure you would be able to protect yourselves, or rather that you wouldn’t need to rely constantly on Sana’s skills. But it had been no secret that you wanted to live out normal lives and until now, that had been a fairly respected choice.  
  
“Are you sure?” She whirled to face you, the blank slate gone and replaced with a fiery expression that would have any opposition kneeing to the ground below her feet.  
  
  
_Eun-Jae, you start your first mission tomorrow." You looked up at Yuta as he leaned comfortably on the wall beside you, a small smirk playing on his mouth. His wide eyes held yours in assessment of your inevitably negative reaction to his casual statement.  
  
He’d been home for less than an hour, the clothes that hung on his frame still reeked of blood and you’d instantly retreated to the safety of the library upon his arrival at the huge entrance gates to the property.  
  
And yet, here he was, nonchalantly waiting for a response as he invaded the only room in the house that you’d come to expect he would never even bother coming into, let alone seek you specifically out in.  
  
“No.” It was a simple word, but you loaded it with lemon and all your dictate for him the words he’d just uttered and the nearness of him that made your skin crawl.  
  
You slammed the book in your hands back down on top of the small round table beside you and turned back to glare at him resolutely. He was well and truly aware that you would never willingly go out there, if you could walk out of this life right now and never look back you would.  
  
Which meant he was just here to get a rise out of you, and you were determined in ways you’d never been before not to give it to him.  
  
“Oh, it’s not a request. You _will _do it, or people that you care about will start to die.” His long dark hair flipped easily across his forehead as he spoke, giving off a disarmingly soft aura that didn’t at all match his words, making your stomach turn as you pushed off the wall angrily, completely forgetting your resolve to ignore his words.  
  
There was an underlying threat to his words that had never been there before, ringing high pitched bells of alarm in the back of your mind as you rounded on him.  
  
“You can’t threaten me, Yuta. You may have your way with nearly everything, but Johnny is the one who calls the shots at the end of the day, not you.” You spat distastefully at him, hoping that you were right and clenching your hands in tight fists at your sides as you struggled to contain your hatred for him.  
  
He just laughed, the sound soft and gentle in the peaceful silence of the room and out of place with the sickening things that left his mouth.  
  
“And I only care about one person now. You wouldn’t risk her skills just to get me to cooperate.” You were confident in that much, your own small smirk beginning to play its part on your lips now as you crossed your arms over your chest and waited for his rebuttal.  
  
Kim Sana, the best trained member of our age group in Seoul and your closest friend… They wouldn’t, couldn’t, kill her or even hurt just to get you to run missions for them. Because they needed her more than they needed you, however much higher in the ‘blood lines’ you were.  
  
“You’re right.” Yuta leaned in, a small frown creasing his face, something that someone else might really have fallen for. But despite your revulsion for the business, you’d been trained thoroughly and for enough years to notice the smallest of details in someone’s face, to know if they were lying to you or concealing something.  
  
No matter how well trained he’d been, he was as prone to the tell tale hints as anyone else.  
  
His top lip twitched ever so slightly and his left eyebrow raised as he waited for a moment, clearly allowing the tension in the air to build, knowing that you were seeing through his thinly veiled glee.  
  
“But you’re not very good at watching innocent people get hurt are you? People that have nothing to do with us, who have done nothing wrong.” You stiffened at his words, your head spinning at the suggested meaning behind them. It shouldn’t have surprised you that he was really willing to put people who had done absolutely nothing wrong in danger just to force your hand.  
  
  
“And you wonder why I want nothing to do with this shit.” You muttered, more to yourself than to him, your eyes narrowing. He lifted his shoulders in a shrug and pushed off the wall, barely more than a step past you when he paused to glance once more over his shoulder at you.  
_

_“You will do what we ask of you. And so will Sana, because if you don’t then people _will _get hurt. There is no room for escaping your duty to this family anymore.” His parting words filled you with dread and revulsion. Whether you continued to tell him no or whether you allowed yourself to be forced out into their world, innocent people would still have to die.  
  
You’d never really expected to be able to live the normal live you craved, but you’d always held onto the hopes that at the very least you would find something else productive to do to assist the family business that didn’t involved being apart of the everyday violence and horror.  
  
Now that it was becoming a reality, one that you hadn’t yet prepared yourself for, it was a harder pill to swallow than you could have ever expected.  
  
There was no question… You weren’t becoming involved in their wars with other gangs, and you weren’t going to hurt people who didn’t deserve it.  
  
You’d rather die.  
  
_“Yes, he told methree days ago. When I left.” You responded to her shortly, pushing the conversation from your thoughts, turning and setting back up on the footpath again as fast as your aching foot would allow, you tried to ignore the constant pain shooting up the length of your leg with each step.  
  
Soft footfalls trailed behind you, quiet yet heavy with burden and anger and you didn’t bother to turn back. There was nothing you could say to erase the things that she was feeling, or that you were feeling.  
  
There was no escaping this fate, you could run now but eventually you were both going to be dragged back in. Or you were going to die, and she knew it as well as you did. But you were going to keep running whether she chose to follow you or not.  
  
“You should have told me Eunnie, instead of running off by yourself.” She said after some time of walking and you slowed your footsteps until they matched hers, the both of you keeping alert gazes on each side.  
  
You were still very much at risk out here in the open and with the current predicament, there was no immediate or easy way out of being so exposed.  
  
“If I’d told you, you’d have been at more risk.” You caught the end roll of her eyes out of the corner of your own and spoke again before she could start up on a rampant against you.  
  
“Not to mention, if I'd contacted you sooner than today you would have been out here with me. I didn’t need that weight on my shoulders.” Indignation grew immediately on her face in the form of reddening cheeks and you resisted the instant smile that sprung to your lips. Now wasnt the time to tease her about her sensitivity.  
  
“You’re so dumb. If I’d been out here with you, you would have been safer.” Ever the selfless warrior, she cast you a glare that might have burnt your skin any other time.  
  
“I might have been, but you’d have been less safe than you were not knowing what Yuta wanted from you.He wouldn’t have dared trying to force you out there if I weren’t there to use as a bargaining chip and he couldn’t risk you running off to look for me if you figured out the reason I’d gone missing.” Sana breathed in sharply at your words, shaking her head angrily even as understanding finally dawned in her sparkling eyes.  
  
By now the sun was rising, slowly but surely, lighting up the streets and giving you less cover out in the open to keep yourselves concealed.  
  
Luckily enough it was unlikely for anyone outside of your family to be actively searching for you, which narrowed down the kinds of people you needed to keep an eye open for. Although given that you came from a well known, well hated family, the risk factor not be quite as low as you’d hoped for.  
  
As you walked it occurred to you how truly ridiculous it was to allow your family’s name to become so widely known and feared. Where there was something to fear, there were also secrets that people ached to unearth, revenge that hearts desired.  
  
The members of any gang were _supposed _to be highly guarded information, to protect them from becoming the target of some other group, and yet there was no doubt in your mind that every member of your family were widely known.  
  
Granted most people would rather avoid the name of “_NCT_”, inwardly you had to snort at the ridiculous abbreviation that you were forced to use as your last name, not all of them would be so easily swayed by the stories of your families deeds.  
  
In fact, those stories may just be the only incentive needed for someone to attack you or Sana.  
  
With you being the grand-daughter of the founder and Sana being the most highly skilled, young, member you made a pair that could be easily used to any gang’s advantage.  
  
If they recognised you.  
  
“We need to find someone to go.” Sana voiced the growing concern on both of your minds as a particularly tall man with electric blue dyed into his slightly messy hair pushed past you, head bowed to mask the curious gaze that his dark eyes slid in our direction.  
  
You nodded silently, all too aware of the many eyes beginning to burn into the back of your neck. It was a small blessing that your family emblem was tattooed into a part of your skin that was covered easily, or the curious gazes might have a quicker time of figuring out your identity and turned quickly into stealthy attempts to ‘obtain’ one or both of us.  
  
Despite your agreement that we needed to find somewhere to rest up, anxiety and worry twisted into a nasty tight ball in your gut as you stood still, using up precious time to consider your options.  
  
The last time you’d stopped for a break, it hadn’t ended well and there was no way to predict what could happen even if you found somewhere that seemed safe from here.  
  
As long as you remained within Seoul, there wasn’t any possible way to ensure either of your safety. There were too many eyes and too little friends of the grand-daughter of ‘NCT’ to make hiding within the perimeters of the district safe.  
  
Too many people knew exactly who you both were, and exactly what they could benefit out of keeping you hostage.  
  
With that in mind you trailed behind Sana when she finally began to move again, making sure to keep her short cut hair in view as you allowed a discrete amount of distance and people between you, adding to your disguise.  
  
If anyone was actively looking for us, they would either be looking for us together or finding just one of us would give the other a chance to escape and come back later. Either way, it would slow down their eyes somewhat if there was only one of us spotted.  
  
The sun had slightly warmed the air by the time you noticed her subtly sliding off of the footpath and down a somewhat deserted looking alleyway.  
  
You followed after her as quickly as you dared, heart throbbing in your throat when you caught a flash of her darkly clothed body disappearing into a doorway, the clang of metal scraping over concrete indicating that she’d found an unlocked door and gone inside it without a moment of hesitation.  
  
For possibly the thousandth time since you’d met Sana, you cursed her impulsivity, this time for robbing you of the chance to point out to here that for all you knew there could an ambush in there, or simply just someone that neither of you wanted to accidentally happen upon with no backup plan.  
  
You didn’t linger though, slipping inside the doorway after her, the metal cold against your skin as you pressed your back to the door to close it behind you, squinting into the dark cavern of a room beyond the doorway.  
  
Apprehension crawled over your skin like small bugs and you resisted the panicky fluttering in your chest that urged you to call out for Sana.  
  
Rule number one, never call unnecessary attention to yourself, especially in a situation that you’re already at a disadvantage.  
  
It was better to stay quiet and maintain under the radar for as long as possible, that was the easiest way to even your playing field.  
  
Again you cursed Sana, and yourself for being stupid enough to follow her in here rather than waiting outside for longer to gather your thoughts.  
  
There were no right choices left.  
  
Either you could stay here in the doorway, waiting for something to happen or a noise to indicate the status of the dark room, or you could step into the darkness and try your luck.  
  
After a few moments of thinking, all that you dared spare, you decided that staying in the doorway would be ultimately the safest option. Which was the exact reason why it would never lead you back to Sana.  
  
Besides, you weren’t about to cower here and act like a helpless child, taking relative safety from a giant metal door’s shadow.  
  
However much you hated your family, hated what they stood for, you weren’t going to rub the name they’d worked hard for in the dirty by acting like a coward.  
  
With soft and sure steps you slipped beyond the small corner that marked the end of the doorway, sticking as close to the wall as you could.  
  
When no noise greeted your first few steps into the surprisingly non-musty smelling room you relaxed slightly, pausing to cast your gaze around again. By now your eyes were finally beginning to accustom and adjust themselves to the dark hue of the room and the hard edges of furniture began to solidify around you with better detail than the plain dark shadows they’d first been.  
  
Directly to your left was the wall which you kept your hand pressed to in an effort to keep your bearings. In front of you was a desk, on which you could just barely make out various scraps of paper, some scrunch into small balls, and books, most piled in haphazard ways against each other in towers you were positive could fall loudly in any moment.  
  
Just beyond the desk was a wardrobe that might have put even the ones back in your mansion like home to shame with a 6 foot tall mirror embossing one of the closed doors and intricate patterns carved deep into the ebony wood of the other.  
  
It was the safest looking thing in this room so far and you tucked that fact deep into the recesses of your mind, already overflowing to the brim with useless information, as your eyes continued to sweep the darkness for Sana.  
  
In the very centre of the room a luxurious sofa like shadow filled quite a large amount of space, clearly made to cater to more than the normal four seater. If anything this looked big enough to fit anywhere near 7-8 people, with a few mismatching armchairs scattered around it.  
  
The first warning rang in the back of your mind as the bits and pieces scattered around the living area began to tug at a thought tucked too far back in your mind to mean anything yet.  
  
You turned slowly, eyebrows furrowing as your faze swept back over more useless furniture shapes that you didn’t care about beyond noting that everything in here seemed to be expensively made, nothing at all like what you’d think to decorate a crabby warehouse room with.  
  
There was somehow no sign of your small friend, ringing the second warning bell as you twisted anxiously on the spot to reevaluate the whole of the room.  
  
Still you couldn’t see any sign that she was here.  
  
And then, without warning or sound, ringing the third and final warning bell far too late as your mind connected the dots, light flooded the room, briefly blinding you.  
  
You winced away from the source of the bright light robbing your sight, hand lifting to cover your eyes as you attempted to recapture your bearings.  
  
“Who the hell are you?!” 


End file.
